50% custody restored (among other good stuff).
Good news!
Sanity (relative) has prevailed, and last Wednesday the court, based on the recommendation of the girl’s court appointed lawyer, restored custody to 50/50 (we’ll have them one week on, one week off, starting next Monday - yaay, I am so utterly happy), and among other items, relaxed the restrictions on me, personally, so that my wife is now able to leave the girls in my sole custody for up to two hours at a time. Meaning I can take them to the movies, the mall, pick them up after school, etc. and meaning that we have enough time with them to go out of town to visit family, etc. My wife is ecstatic. She’s got all sorts of plans, now that we get the kids twice as often (and we’ll have them for half of Christmas vacation and next summer, too).
My wife’s ex, on the other hand, was majorly pissed (good!), since it reversed almost all the gains he made in the last go around. Amusingly enough, it is his own fault - if he hadn’t dragged us back to court earlier this year on totally bogus grounds (the judge made mincemeat of him when he did) and gotten a new judge, the kid’s wouldn’t have had a lawyer appointed for them, and there wouldn’t have been a re-evaluation of the custody arrangements and court orders so soon (relatively speaking). His response to the declaration of the girl’s lawyer recommending restoration of custody was essentially a rant without content or substance … perhaps because he’s finally ran out of lawyers willing to take his case, perhaps because he realized there wasn’t any point, since the judge was likely to defer to her, as the advocate for the kid’s best interest and give little credence to his complaints.
It appears that the girl’s lawyer has a pretty solid grasp on the nature of the situation, and we had a very good post-trial discussion with her about the case, the girls, my wife’s ex, and what we need to do to make this work (we understand we’re in a defensive position, and have to be extra co-operative). This occured after my wife’s ex-husband made a complete ass of himself, acted like he had not really understood anything the judge had said in court about what needed to happen (basically, functional co-parenting), verbally attacked the girl’s lawyer, then stormed off. This is a very typical pattern: in just about every case, when a party involved deals with both of them to any extent, it becomes rapidly clear to these folks that his point of view on events is at odds with everyone else’s (and reality).
The judge (and the girl’s lawyer) was emphatic about wanting conflicts resolved through co-parenting counseling (we just need to come up with $67 per visit for some unknown but probably extensive number of visits, argh) rather than a return to court, and specifically pointed out to my wife’s ex-husband that over thirty different professionals have evaluated the situation, and not one of them, to the judge’s recollection, had agreed with his interpretation of events. Something that did not seem to penetrate his skull at all. Even when the girl’s lawyer specifically pointed this out, it obviously didn’t get through to him that some self-evaluation would be beneficial.
He proceeded to demonstrate his lack of understanding that he needs to demonstrate tangible efforts towards being co-operative by verbally attacking me on one of my email lists later that day, making a complete ass out of himself (including making homophobic remarks) - the other participants proceeded to flame him ruthlessly in response. Basically a repeat of an earlier attack on that same list, with similar results… amazing that he didn’t get the message the first time. Dense is a generous description of the guy.
Stevens (the judge who has been hearing this case since the beginning, and who by some miracle of scheduling, was available) specifically singled me out for a lecture at the end of the process, and stated that to the extent that I continue to publicly communicate my anger at what I perceive to be the court system’s institutionalized homophobia and “politicize” the case, I’m prejudicing my wife’s ability to retain custody. Well, he’s welcome to take that position, but threats from the bench are not going to get me to shut up about the situation, and I really doubt he’d let his objectivity be compromised that way. I spoke at the Tranny March last weekend about the case and the family court system’s bias against queer folk, and the need for queer folk to lobby the legislature to change things, and have mentioned it in various personal conversations since. Bluntly, I don’t think my wife’s sexuality, or my own, or our personal philosophies in these matters, or what we do in bed, with anyone, or what we say about it, should be a factor in my wife’s retention of custody. It isn’t reasonable for us to pretend that we’re straight monosexual monogamous individuals who aren’t involved in the larger queer community; should our kids not know that my wife is president of a bisexual activist organization? Or that I’m co-chair of a GLBT one? Or that we attend BAYMEC events with candidates for the Assembly and that our elected representative in the Assembly is a gay man, who is married to another gay man? I don’t think so. The court does. Fine - but it isn’t immune from criticism for that.
I actually respect Stevens quite a bit, I don’t think the homophobia of his rulings is personal, but rather a product of the system he’s in, and the pressures it faces to enforce conformity with a very narrow norm. I’ve sat in his court for quite a while, and I think he’s an objective jurist whose goal is a just (and when possible, fair) outcome for all parties, in some very messy situations.
In the long run, I don’t think it matters a lot; Santa Cruz is a very queer friendly community, the kids will be exposed to all sorts of queer positive educational material in the schools, there will be plenty of role models, they will have plenty of friends from school whose parents are queer, they will have friends who are queer in middle school and high school… all this, in addition to being exposed to a ton of queer role models in our lives (even if they don’t know they’re queer until later) - religious figures, political figures, friends, married couples, business partners, etc. I’m confident that, no matter how much he tries, the ex won’t be able to turn them into homophobic Christian fundamentalist zombies.
On the balance, I think the asinine behavior of my wife’s ex, his total non-cooperation in the co-parenting process, his systematic attempts to undermine the kid’s relationship with my wife (and myself), etc. are going to weigh more heavily in the court’s mind than my activism (and that of my wife)… and really, the key person at this point is going to be the kid’s lawyer (in court - she seems to have a reasonable handle on the situation) and the therapist (out of court) - it should be really interesting, to see how co-parenting therapy works out. Also to see if my wife’s ex follows the other orders of the court, which include:
a) that he go through the same counseling process my wife did, regarding safety and sexual boundaries, and/or individual therapy
b) that he attempt to be resolve disputes through the co-parenting therapist, rather than immediately returning to court
c) this will be an interesting one: “Father not subject the children to discussions, conversations or doctrine which purpose is to condemn certain sexual behavior or sexual preferences.”
d) that this children are not left unsupervised for any length of time with his mother (who seems to be a major source of problems, according to all parties involved)
e) also, the recommendation is pretty specific about him not being able to smoke anything, cigarettes, or pot (which he’s admitted that he continues to spoke in court filings, and which he has a historic problem with - including getting a jail sentence extended for dealing it while in jail [yikes, talk about dumb!]) while the kids are with him; I kind of suspect that the pot smoking is contributing to his level of paranoia and uncooperativeness, so hopefully he’ll cut back on that and act more sane as a result
Various annoying restrictions on both parties remain, including the stuff that upsets my wife (such as a ban on adult nudity, which as a Swedish native, she just doesn’t get… me, being an American, I get it, and it doesn’t bother me - qualifies as an annoyance, since the rest of the world doesn’t have to abide by it) and limitations on traveling out of state (impractical, given the current custody arrangements anyway).
Anyway, all in all, I’m comfortable with what came down… the clear message from the court to both parents is “co-operate” (which is what my wife has been trying to do all along, and he ex hasn’t) and don’t return to court until you’ve tried to work things out through the therapist. Which puts a pretty significant damper on the ex’s tactic of dragging us into court several times a year seeking more restrictions and full custody (thank god). Big barrier for him to hurdle before the court will take seriously any filings on his part.
The most important thing is the 50/50 custody - we get to play an equal role in the girl’s lives. Since the kid’s are pretty level-headed, I think our values of tolerance, respect for diversity, open mindedness, kindness and non-creepyChristian fundamentalist lunatic type ways of living will win out. :)
